


Night Boat to Colorado

by thealphagate_archivist



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Action/Adventure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-18
Updated: 2009-02-18
Packaged: 2019-02-02 06:11:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12721122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thealphagate_archivist/pseuds/thealphagate_archivist
Summary: Daniel's boredom ends when he gets a surprise visitor...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the archivists: this story was originally archived at [The Alpha Gate](https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Alpha_Gate), a Stargate SG-1 archive, which began migration to the AO3 in 2017 when its hosting software, eFiction, was no longer receiving support. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are this creator and it hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Alpha Gate collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/thealphagate).

I was bored. For the past few hours I'd been wading through a book on Roman Gaul. It was all connected with the area I tended to specialise in - Roman ceramics - but I just couldn't concentrate. Was the third century crisis partly responsible for the decline in Samian pottery? I just didn't care anymore. 

My lack of enthusiasm partly stemmed from the fact I'd been working in archaeology for ten years and had never really progressed past general dogsbody. When I first went to University I'd ignored everyone when they said there wasn't a future in it. In a way they were wrong: there was a future, it just seemed to centre around short-term contract work with little money and little job stability. It hadn't bothered me at first. Wanting to do archaeology had never been about money. I'd loved the way you were directly connected to the past. Everyone must feel it to some extent. If you go to an Iron Age hill fort and watch the sunset, you know you're doing something that people did there thousands of years ago. Historians might know the facts, but archaeologists are the ones who get to decide what the facts are. 

Every now and then I'd get the feeling I always used to get, that feeling you were onto something. The feeling you could prove or disprove something that people had been arguing about for years. But my time was mainly taken up with being cheap labour on digs in the summer, working on pottery reports after excavations, and reading various books and articles. If only I could get a research grant, then I could start doing something worthwhile. As it was, I was resigned to reading books about Roman Gaul. 

Then the doorbell rang. If it had been Jehovah's Witnesses at the door I would have invited them in. There was hardly anything I'd rather not do than read about Roman Gaul. The person standing at the door was about my height, around six feet tall, and had an air of menace about him. 

"Are you Dr Daniel Jackson?" he asked. 

"Yes," I answered, thinking that his air of menace would be explained if he came from a research department somewhere. Some of those guys didn't get out much. 

"Can I talk to you for a moment?" 

"Sure, do you want to come in?" I opened the door wider, revealing a typical archaeologist's flat, with books and journals stacked all over the place in stratigraphic layers. 

He nodded, and stepped through into my lacklustre housing. The place was essentially clean, but there always seemed to be a build-up of possessions. No matter how often I tidied, things always got back to an untidy state pretty quickly. Besides, when I put things up I could never find them. 

I moved some books from the settee, and beckoned for him to sit down. Then I walked over to the kitchen area. 

"Coffee?" I said, reaching for the jar of instant granules. 

"I'd rather get straight to the point, if you don't mind." From his tone of voice, it didn't seem like whether I minded had anything to do with it. 

"What can I do for you?" I asked. 

I was hoping the answer would be at the very least an invitation to talk at a function of some sort. I wished I looked a bit more presentable. Then again, if he was used to dealing with archaeologists he'd know I was positively overdressed for reading about the house. 

"I'd like to talk to you about your previous work." 

"The stuff I did on the pottery assemblages of military forts? I liked that study, it..." I trailed off when I saw that clearly wasn't what he meant. 

"Your theory on the pyramids being built by aliens." 

Feeling a sense of foreboding, I replied, "I never said they were built by aliens". 

"No, you didn't," he said. "How would you feel if I told you I had proof?" 

"Proof?" I definitely had a nutter on my hands. This was turning out to be a bad day. 

"I'm looking for the Stargate, Dr Jackson. I have reason to believe you know something about it." 

"Stargate? Look, I don't know if anyone told you, but you've come to the wrong man. The Daniel Jackson that wrote that article belongs to the past. I was losing my mind! I went into therapy, I got myself sorted out, and now I'm trying to win some respect from my archaeology colleagues." 

"I hardly think you could have discarded theories that you were once so passionate about." 

"You'd better believe it! No one's talked to me about that for a long time. Why do you think I came to England and started up in a totally new field? Everyone's too scared to mention all that rubbish in case I have a relapse, and then you come to my home and start harassing me?!" 

The disillusionment and boredom turned into something I hadn't felt for a long time: pure anger. I'm sure I would have thrown the man out of my house, or at least taken a swing at him, if he hadn't stood up and loomed over me. Suddenly I was scared. 

"You will tell me, Dr Jackson. Last time anyone saw you in America was when you came out of that lecture. The one that everyone walked out of. Remember?" 

Bleakly, I nodded. 

"And you talked to someone, Catherine Langford. Her father was the one who found the Stargate." 

I didn't know what to say. I fixed my gaze on a copy of Current Archaeology that lay on the floor, and tried to ignore the malevolent force that was threatening me in my own home. 

"You will tell me what I need to know, Dr Jackson." 

He raised his hand. I saw a glint of gold. Something had been hidden underneath his black suit - he was wearing some sort of twisted gold artefact on his arm. Set into the gold on the palm of his hand was a red jewel of some sort. Fascinated, I tried to work out what it was. Something like that had a La Tène feel to it, beautiful metalwork, perhaps a sign of status? As I gazed at the jewel, I came to the conclusion that I probably shouldn't have let this man into my house.


	2. Chapter 2

An evil smile spread across his face, and the jewel began to glow. A beam of red light seemed to be travelling between his hand and my forehead, and the pain was intense. It's hard to describe. It's pain so terrible that you can't move. You can't even think about trying to get away. It's as if everything in your mind is laid bare, and there's nothing you can do about it. You want to fight back, but you can't move. Every cell in your body is screaming at you to do something, but you can't. And the pain grows, and grows, until you wish you could collapse into unconsciousness. But you can't. You're totally at the mercy of whoever is pointing the thing at your head. Unfortunately, the sort of person who wields devices like that is unlikely to have an ounce of mercy in them. Luckily for me, this man wanted information, so he wasn't going to kill me. I say that now, but at the time I would have welcomed death. I would have welcomed anything that made the pain stop. 

The mental screaming became more and more intense. Everything started to go fuzzy around the edges. It's like the intense pressure you feel inside your head before you faint. If you've never fainted, it looks like the black and white dots that you get when a TV isn't tuned in properly. Noiselessly opening and closing my mouth, trying to make a sound but having no success, I thought this would be the end. But he turned off the device, and I collapsed to the floor. 

The relief was incredible, though I still couldn't think clearly. I hardly knew who I was. Whatever that thing did, I'd have done anything to avoid experiencing the red beam again. 

The man looked at me with contempt, and flexed the fingers that bore the golden device. Then he knelt next to me and whispered, "Now can you tell me what I want to know?" 

"Can't..." I said, my voice hardly audible. 

"What?" 

"Can't tell you..." I said, gasping for breath. It took all my effort to form those three simple words. He didn't seem to appreciate the lengths I'd been to. 

He stood up, and angrily looked around the room. I have no idea what he was looking for. If it was a weapon, he was out of luck. There were no cricket bats lying around, and all my kitchen knives had trouble cutting anything other than extremely soft food. For a moment I lay there, enjoying the peace, hoping that he was going to leave me alone. No such luck. He started kicking me, kicking my stomach over and over. I couldn't fight back. I might have felt a bit clearer mentally, but my limbs weren't going anywhere any time soon. He'd almost brought me to tears, and it wasn't going to get him anywhere. I honestly couldn't help him, even if I'd wanted to. I wasn't the same person who'd written those articles. And that's the truth. 

Eventually the pounding stopped. I was in a semi-conscious state. Everything was dark, and I couldn't move. I felt him haul me onto a kitchen chair and tie me up, vaguely aware of events but unable to influence them. It didn't look as if he was going anywhere. 

After a while I came to. I have no idea how much time had passed; it could have been minutes or hours, time had no meaning. No one ever came to visit me. Even if the postman brought me something, I could hardly expect him to come to my aid when there was a weird assailant waving a strange golden device around. I didn't want to open my eyes, I knew he'd be there, watching me. So I tried to put off the inevitable. 

For about five minutes, I had peace and mental clarity. Here I was, an archaeologist who no one had heard of (except this man, apparently), tied up in my own home. There was no way I could give the man what he wanted, so it didn't look like things were likely to have a happy ending. If he usually let people go, there would probably be more Crimestoppers reconstructions featuring a spooky man wearing a gold thing on his arm. 

My breathing must have changed, or else he was just fed up of waiting, as he woke me up in the traditional manner of a cold jug of water to the head. Spluttering and dripping, I felt like shouting unrepeatable things at him, but I couldn't. This man had made me incredibly scared of him. It doesn't sound brave, but he could have killed me. If he wanted to kill me, there would be nothing I could do to stop him. Increasing my chances of death didn't seem worth the satisfaction of telling him how much I hated him. 

"Now you will tell me," he said. 

I let my chin fall onto my chest, wondering how to tell him I couldn't help. 

"Tell me," he said, more insistently. He lifted my chin, and looked into my eyes. His gaze was piercing, but however much I wanted to look away, I couldn't. 

"I can't tell you. I can't help you. That's what I've been trying to say. You've got the wrong man!"


	3. Chapter 3

For a moment he looked confused. Then he decided I was lying. "But you are Dr Jackson." 

"I lied. I'm not Dr Jackson, I'm just Daniel Jackson. I have a degree in archaeology, but I don't have a doctorate. I don't even have an MA! I can't help you!" 

"I don't believe you," he said. 

I wouldn't have believed me either. For someone who'd been pretending to be Dr Jackson for so long, the revelation sounded false even to my own ears. But it was true. I'd been struggling to make a name for myself, when one day I'd stumbled across Dr Jackson's work. In a moment of boredom I'd looked up archaeologists with the same name as me, and I'd found Dr Daniel. He looked like another proponent of crackpot archaeology. There's a lot of it around, and it generally gets more media coverage than the stuff with facts behind it. But he had two doctorates, and he was generally acknowledged to be brilliantly clever. And what's more, after that fateful lecture at which he'd met Catherine Langford, he'd disappeared. 

It hadn't been hard to pretend to be the Doctor, though it hadn't done me much good. Since I'm British, the chances of me being recognised are far slimmer than if I was working in the States. If I steered clear of Egyptology, I could start making a name for myself with very little risk. For a while after I'd supposedly come out of therapy, I'd done a few lectures, and had a few things published. It wasn't really pretending, we had the same name, I was just borrowing his somewhat dodgy reputation. And his two PhDs. The Doctor had kept me from starving, and I owed him for that, but I'd tell this man from hell where he was if it meant he'd leave me alone. 

"I'm not Dr Jackson," I said. "You can torture me all you like, but I'm not him. You know I'm telling the truth, look at me! Why would I lie?" 

For a moment I felt like I was in a Quentin Tarantino film. I never thought things like this happened in real life. They certainly didn't happen to archaeologists! I wondered whether pleading with this guy would help. To my relief, he believed me. 

"Do you know where Dr Jackson is?" 

"No." 

He raised the hand with the ribbon device. 

"I mean, sort of," I added hurriedly. "I think he's working for the US Government." 

Even I hadn't been stupid enough to take over someone's reputation before making sure they weren't likely to turn up. Langford had apparently taken him away to work on some sort of translation, and he hadn't been heard of since. Whatever her project had been, the military had been involved. 

"Then where should we go to find him?" the man asked. 

In some ways the man sounded lost, like he'd always been given orders and was having to work on his own for the first time. He depended on brute force to get the answers he needed, but he wasn't a great thinker. He was someone's muscle, and I wouldn't have wanted to meet his boss. 

"I don't know," I said, keeping an eye on his brain-draining device. 

"Where would you go?" 

"Ah, maybe Area 51. There's lots of weird stuff going on there if the stories are to be believed." 

"Area 51." 

"It's near Las Vegas. There's an airbase there I think, Nellis or something." 

Part of me wanted to get this conversation over with. Part of me hoped that he'd leave me alone. Part of me thought that was extremely unlikely to happen, and I'd probably be dead very shortly. 

"You will come with me," he said. 

"Come with you?" 

"I cannot trust you. There is only one way I can determine that you are telling the truth." 

I didn't like the way this was going. I shut my eyes. There's always been a part of me that believed the 'head in the sand' theory. Maybe if I couldn't see him he'd leave me alone. 

To my surprise, he untied me. I opened my eyes again. 

"Get on the floor, face down," he ordered. 

I figured this was the end. Normally they tell you to kneel with your hands behind your head, if the films are right, but this sounded enough like that to be the end. Who would miss me? I didn't have any family really. My parents had emigrated years ago, and we hardly ever spoke. I would just become another statistic in the government crime figures. 

I lay there, with my head turned to the side, my left cheek against the carpet. Strangely, I started thinking about how the carpet needed hoovering. I heard the man lay down next to me, and I started getting very suspicious. I could never have imagined how bad things were about to get... 

The man let out some sort of sigh, and I began to wonder what was going to happen next. I began to wonder if it was safe to move. Maybe he'd had a heart attack or something. Then I felt something on my neck. My instant reaction was to jump up and try to get it off of me, but I was gripped with a strange sense of terror. Then I felt terrible pain. The thing was burrowing into my neck! I started to thrash around, trying to make it stop, but it was no use. I heard crackling noises as it burrowed deeper, I felt things inside my neck give way to it forcing its way through my insides. Then there was peace. Stabbing pains, but no more movement. 

I rolled onto my right side, and looked at the man. He didn't seem to be breathing. Then I realised I couldn't move. I wondered if the burrowing thing had paralysed me. Gradually I began to realise I wasn't alone. I stood up and walked into the bathroom. I pulled up my T-shirt and looked at my bruised stomach. I hadn't wanted to do that, I hadn't told myself to, it'd just happened. I concentrated really hard, trying to make my right hand pick up my toothbrush. It was no good. 

"Not a bad body," I said. "Perhaps I shouldn't have knocked it around so much."


	4. Chapter 4

I began to wonder whether I'd suddenly developed schizophrenia. I definitely didn't plan on saying that, but it came out of my mouth. I don't know much about psychological disorders, but my theory seemed an unlikely one, even to me. I couldn't help but think that a strange burrowing neck monster and my apparent inability to control my own body were somehow connected. 

"It is no use struggling," I heard myself say. "I am in control of your body now. I am the being that proves Dr Jackson's theory. Together we will find Dr Jackson. You have no choice in the matter, you will comply." 

I realised he couldn't know everything I was thinking. He was unlikely to be this amenable if he knew all my thoughts! I felt something relax, and for a moment I had control of my body. 

"Looks like I don't have much choice, you're right about that." 

For a moment I thought about doing something to get him out of my head, but I couldn't think of anything. Then I had an overwhelming thought that I should pack some belongings. Then I thought it'd be a really good idea to put on a smart suit. Sitting on my bed, I decided I wasn't going to do it. Whatever he did to me, he'd be doing it to his own body. Surely he wouldn't want to wreck the thing he was living in? 

The thought of rebellion was swept away when stabbing pains filled my head. Groaning, I rolled up into a little ball. I clenched my teeth, trying not to give in, but I couldn't take it. It looked like I was no longer in charge of my own body. 

That time he knew what I was thinking. He stopped, and took over, forcing my body to do the things I didn't want to do. I hated the way he rummaged through my clothes. I hated the way he threw things onto the floor that he didn't want. He knew I hated it. That's probably why he was doing it. 

It's strange. You never think about all the things you think about, if you know what I mean. They always say that God knows every thought you think, which is a very daunting concept. When there's something that could be monitoring all your thoughts, you can't help but think about your thoughts. Every moment is spent in wondering whether you should be thinking about something, and whether he knows what you're thinking. How much can he tell? Can you work out plans without him knowing? For a while I struggled with the concept, but it was mentally exhausting. I no longer had the option of sleeping when my brain got tired, so I developed a sort of semi-consciousness. There was nothing I could do about things, so it hardly seemed worth bothering to pay attention. 

It was in this strange state that I made it to America. The alien (for that's what he seemed to be) hardly needed my knowledge to do anything. I wasn't really sure why he decided to take my body. I tried to keep reasonably fit, but it wasn't like I worked out excessively. The knowledge of an archaeologist only has a limited use. So why me? Perhaps it solved the problem of what to do with me, though there must have been a dead body slowly decaying on my living room floor. What a horrible thought. It's like one of those horror films when someone's been dead for weeks, but no one realises until the smell starts wafting into the neighbours' flats. I didn't fancy the idea of having to live there again. Not that I'd probably get the chance of living anywhere I wanted to. I'd either be controlled by this being, or I'd be dead. 

Nevada was hot. I'd never been to Nevada. If I'd had the choice, I'd rather not have gone. But things being as they were, I decided I'd tag along. After a long period of rest, such as it was, I felt able to start experimenting. I started thinking really hard about something, to see if I could influence what he did, like he'd been doing in my flat. After thinking about something for a very long time, he did give in. It took ages, but I managed to make him smile at the woman in the shop we were in. Big deal. 

He seemed to think it'd be a really good idea if we went to the base in an airforce uniform. So he'd taken us to a surplus shop, and we'd picked out a load of gear. I was a little confused about how he'd pass off my south-east of England accent as suitable for someone in the US Air Force, but he was the one in charge. I had to admit I looked quite good in the outfit. Trouble was, we didn't have any money left to pay for anything. I didn't have a credit card. No one would let me, I'd been down to the limit so often that I was no longer considered worthy. We'd used all my cash (little as it was) to get to this sultry place. He didn't see this as a problem - it was more of an opportunity. 

I realised I was wearing the gold device. I'm sure the bands round the fingers shouldn't have fitted me so well, unless it hadn't fitted the previous host. Slowly, I lifted my palm up to the girl's face. She stopped complaining in mid sentence, and stared at the gem, much as I'd done. To my horror, he started the device, and I was able to watch the process from the other side. I tried to make him stop. I tried so hard, but he was determined. He was enjoying it. I could feel his enjoyment mingling with my hatred, the two extremes becoming entangled deep down in my mind. 

Her face distorted, twisting in agony. She was only young, around twenty years old, and she was pretty. She probably had a boyfriend, and lots of people who cared about her. I'd rather have died than let him destroy her. You could tell she was near death, he'd gone further than he'd done with me. Then he did something which made me hate him even more, which was something I hadn't thought was possible. He stopped draining her brain, and he leaned forward and kissed her. I could feel every part of the kiss, the warmth of her body, and I hated him for it. How could he take advantage of someone like this? Murder is one thing, but this made it so much more personal. 

The kiss was brief, and I think in some ways it was my own fault. Maybe it's paranoia, but I'm sure he did some things to annoy me. He knew it went against what I wanted, so he did it. That way he had two sources of pleasure: the pleasure of violating that young woman, and the pleasure of knowing he was torturing me. I'd rather go through the physical torment he'd initially subjected me too than that horrible experience. Maybe he had known all my rebellious thoughts and this was his way of teaching me who was in charge. Whatever the reason, after the kiss, he killed that girl and left her there, lying on the cold floor of the shop. If anyone was going to get blamed for that murder, it would be me, not the parasite inside me. It's things like that that can really spoil your day.


	5. Chapter 5

We made our way to the base, where we talked to the person at the checkpoint. The young airman looked bored. It couldn't have been a particularly thrilling job. I could only hope that I wasn't going to make his day something that he'd remember for as long (or as short) as he lived. 

For a moment he looked at me strangely. I wondered if we'd made a mistake somewhere on the uniform. 

"Can I help you?" he asked. 

"I'm looking for Dr Jackson," I said. 

He tapped something into a computer console. "Dr Jackson isn't here today. Can I help?" 

"I have a report to deliver. Is he...?" 

I trailed off. Clever. I'm asking a leading question, trying to get him to say where the Doctor is. 

"Yes, he's at the Cheyenne base." 

That was too easy. If I ever got to tell anyone about this, I'd let them know that their security was shoddy. 

Another long journey later, I was in Colorado. I'd never been there, either. As a matter of fact, I'd never been out of Europe. The experience wasn't that enjoyable seeing as I was a passenger. I couldn't choose which direction to look, or whether to scratch my forehead, or even whether to push the hair out of my eyes. I was hungry and thirsty, but he didn't seem to care. I don't suppose it bothered him. If he left it too long I'd probably collapse, but he must have known that. He'd probably had a lot of experience about human limits, judging from his expertise in the area of torture. 

We'd managed to hitch a lift on the back of an airforce truck that was going to the complex. He didn't talk. He wasn't exactly Mr Charisma. I suppose the airmen thought better of trying to get him to join in with their infantile conversation. I was dressed as an officer, that might have had something to do with it. I knew, from looking in the mirror at the surplus store, that I didn't look friendly. He had a way of making my face look grim and foreboding. I could never have made my face look like that. I've generally borne the expression of someone who's always slightly confused. 

At the base, the truck drove straight through the gates. For a while I thought we'd made it without any trouble. When we got out, we had to go past a security desk. This time things wouldn't be so easy. The other airmen noisily filed past, flashing their laminated badges. We didn't have a laminated badge. 

The airman on duty looked at me strangely, then asked to see my identification. 

"I have something to deliver to Dr Jackson," I said. 

"Okay, Sir, if you'd like to leave it with me I'll make sure he gets it." 

"It has to be hand delivered," I said, with a chill tone underlying my words. 

"If you don't have clearance, I can't let you in," he said. 

I couldn't see how he was going to make this one work. Perhaps we could hang around outside the base until the Doctor came out, whenever that was. That could take days, but I was willing to wait if it meant no one else got hurt. It was suddenly dawning on me that when we met up with the Doctor, I was going to be the one who did whatever the alien wanted me to do to him. I could spend the rest of my life locked up for crimes I didn't commit. But the ironic thing would be that I had committed them, I just hadn't had any choice. When you put it like that, I'm more likely to have to spend the rest of my life locked up in a padded cell. 

All of a sudden I began to feel pain all over my body. For a moment I stood, shocked, feeling the hideous waves sweep over me. I was suddenly in control of my body, though there was little I could do. It took all my self-control to hold onto the sides of the desk, my knuckles showing white as I gripped it as hard as I could. 

"Sir, are you alright?" the man asked. 

The most I could manage in response was a groan. Then I collapsed onto my knees, before falling onto the floor and writhing in agony. The airman wasn't really sure what to do, but he lifted the telephone receiver and called someone. Gasping, I tried to say something. It was the first time since I'd been in my flat that I was in control of my body, but I was still helpless. 

It's funny how you can't remember pain. I suppose that if you could, there would be lots of things you wouldn't keep doing. Like having children. When I said before that I'd rather suffer than watch myself kill someone, I clearly hadn't reckoned on him doing this to me. Pain can make you very selfish. It can make you do things that you'd never agree to in any other circumstances. And he knew that.


	6. Chapter 6

I must have blacked out, as next thing I knew I was lying on a hospital bed. A woman was bending over me, looking concerned. Realising this was my chance to say something before he asserted himself again, I tried to plead for help. Exactly why she'd believe I'd been taken over by an alien, I hadn't worked out. When you're under pressure, you don't stop to work out how believable you sound. As soon as I'd opened my mouth he started the pain again. I moaned, and shut my eyes. I felt tears starting to form. I couldn't take this anymore. 

"Where does it hurt?" she asked. 

"All over...it hurts all over..." 

I felt some strange relief in being able to say something of my own accord. I'd wanted to tell her all my problems, but telling her I was in pain was a start. 

She took off my jacket, and tossed it to the floor. Something fell out of one of the pockets. It was the golden device. Horrified, she ran over to the red button on the wall and pressed it. An alarm sounded. She picked up the phone on the wall and talked to someone. I could only hear snatches of the conversation, but I'm sure she said something that sounded like Goa'uld. I could only assume that that was what the thing inside me was called. 

The alien inside me wasn't happy. That's an understatement. He'd managed to get into the complex, but that woman obviously knew what the golden device meant. Unfortunately for him, the pain he'd put me through meant I was physically incapable of moving. The woman could see that, and she hurriedly strapped me to the table. 

If I could have seen, I would have known that he'd made my eyes glow. 

"I must talk to Dr Jackson," I said. My voice sounded odd, like it was being run through a synthesiser. There was no doubt that it wasn't me doing the talking, not any more. 

The woman looked at me worriedly. I got the feeling she knew I had been in terrible pain, and I got the feeling she knew who was responsible. She must have known a lot more about what was happening to me than I did. 

"Let me talk to Dr Jackson or I will hurt this host!" 

She looked away, fixing her gaze somewhere across the room. Then the pain started again. This time I screamed in agony. She could see my torment, and she hated not being able to do anything. Painkillers wouldn't have helped. It really was all in the mind. 

A group of airmen rushed into the room, with their guns at the ready. The person at the front was an older man who was very much in charge. When he got to the bed, he stared at me for a moment before turning to the woman. 

"Dr Fraiser?" he asked. 

"Uncanny, isn't it? He came to deliver something to Dr Jackson, apparently, and collapsed at the front desk." 

I moaned, making fists with my hands, clenching my teeth, trying to stop the pain. 

"What's he doing?" said the man. 

"The Goa'uld seems to be putting its host through a lot of pain." 

"Ya think?" said the man with a look of disgust. "Can't you help him?" 

"I can't think of anything I could do that would help, except if we get Dr Jackson down here. That's what the Goa'uld wants. There is no medical way that I can help this man." She laid her hand on my forehead. It felt cool and soothing. I hadn't realised, but I was burning up. 

"Let's do that," said the man, Colonel O'Neill, before striding out of the room. 

For a while the parasite left me in peace. I couldn't talk, but there was no more pain. Dr Fraiser had put a damp cloth on my head, and that helped a lot. It's amazing how much the little things help. You can focus on something other than the problems that dominate your existence. Yeah, you might have been taken over by an alien, but you have a cold piece of cloth on your head. Things could be worse.


	7. Chapter 7

It didn't take long for O'Neill to return with three other people. One of them was a woman, one was a muscly black man, and the other man was the man I'd always dreaded meeting: Dr Jackson. 

They stopped by my bedside and looked down at me. 

"Wow," said the blonde woman. 

"I know," said Dr Fraiser. "Incredible, isn't it?" 

"What's incredible?" said Jackson. 

"Daniel," said the blonde, "he looks so much like you." 

"Does he?" said the archaeologist, adjusting his glasses. 

"Well, there are differences," she said. "Like he's a whole lot musclier than you, and perhaps a little more handsome." 

"Really?" said Jackson, somewhat affronted. 

"Yeah. It's sort of like the difference between Michael Shanks and James Spader." 

"Sam, focus, please?" said O'Neill. 

"Sorry, Sir." 

For a moment they stood, looking at me. No one was sure what to do. Then he made my eyes glow again, and talked in that strange voice. 

"You are all connected with the Stargate project?" 

"Yes, we are," said Jackson. 

"I wish to know what has happened to my master, Seth." 

"Seth?" 

"If you do not tell me, I will torture this host." He meant it. I was getting to know when he meant things. We were getting closer the more time we spent together. 

"I'm not sure we should tell you anything until you tell us a bit about yourself. We'd kinda like to know who we're talking to," said O'Neill. 

"I do not have a name, not that I remember. Besides, my name is irrelevant. I am the servant of Seth. One of the trusted." 

"Can we talk to the host?" Samantha Carter asked. 

"The host does not wish to talk to you." 

"I think he does," said O'Neill. 

I knew that the alien, the servant of Seth, was trying to make them like me so they'd feel guiltier when he tortured me. I suppose that if people were going to watch me suffer, it'd be nice if they cared. Everyone can feel pity, but when you know about the person suffering it's a lot worse. Mind you, once Dr Jackson found out I stole his life, he might not feel much sympathy. 

He let me have control of my body. Unprepared, my head lolled to one side. 

Dr Fraiser knelt down so she was nearer my eye level. 

"Are you okay?" 

"Not really," I said. 

"Who are you?" asked O'Neill. 

"Daniel Jackson, archaeologist, from England...long story..." 

Now that I had control, I was finding it very hard to say what I wanted to say. What I'd said was strange enough. They turned to each other and all did variations of the raised eyebrow 'how strange!' face. It was that strange. 

"Coincidence," said O'Neill, shrugging. 

"I don't think it is, Jack," said Jackson. "If this Goa'uld went looking for me, he'd try to find all the archaeologists called Daniel Jackson. Makes sense, really." 

"Yeah," said O'Neill. "So everything this guy's been through is your fault?" 

Daniel glared at Jack. Then my eyes glowed again. 

"Well, tell me news of my master Seth," said the alien. 

"He's dead. We killed him," said O'Neill. 

"I do not believe you," he said. 

The pain started, but this time I was past caring. I let it flow over me. I was whimpering, I think, but I can't really remember. 

"Look, he really is dead!" said O'Neill, grabbing my arm. 

"Who is responsible for the death of my master?" 

"Me, I'm responsible," said Carter, stepping forward. "I killed him with a ribbon device." 

"Yes, I feel the naqahdah in you, I believe you're telling the truth. This leaves me with a problem."


	8. Chapter 8

There was silence. I felt like I was listening in on some sort of conference. I wasn't supposed to be there, I wasn't supposed to be listening. I didn't have a clue what they were all talking about. I knew Seth was the Egyptian god of chaos and confusion, but I had no idea what that had to do with anything. The strange thing was, I knew I wasn't the only one that was confused. He was confused too, he really didn't know what to do. He'd come here looking for his master, and now he'd discovered his master was gone! Without a master he had no direction. He needed someone to command him. 

"If you killed my master, I must pledge my allegiance to you," he said to Carter. 

"Really?" said O'Neill. "Wow. That's a great honour. The word of an evil alien means a lot to us." 

"A Goa'uld who has served for so long cannot remain masterless," said the silent man. Up until this point he'd hardly moved, let alone said anything. "He has served for hundreds of years, he knows no other way of living." 

"Teal'c, you're saying that he's part of a sub-caste of Goa'uld servants? Goa'ulds bred to serve other Goa'ulds?" 

Dr Jackson was obviously interested in the social arrangements of these aliens, and perhaps I would have been if I'd been in his place. But I was the one inhabited by an alien, and I wanted to get it off of my brain stem as quickly as possible. 

"Guys, however fascinating you're finding all this, we have the problem of the host?" 

Down to earth Colonel Jack O'Neill to the rescue. 

"Janet, what do you think we should do with him?" said O'Neill. 

"I think we should move him to a room somewhere," answered Dr Fraiser. "There's no point keeping him here." 

And so I came to be in a cell. It wasn't really a cell, it was too comfortable for that. It was plusher than my house in many ways. The time seemed to drag. I started to dread the alien's boredom. If he got too bored he was bound to start tormenting me again. Maybe I could teach him chess or something, keep him occupied. 

Everything seemed unreal now. My old life seemed so far in the past, but my new existence had a dreamlike quality. It was very hard to remember events, but I had horrible snatches of emotion. I was a murderer. However much I hadn't wanted to, I'd killed. 

After what seemed like an eternity, a delegation arrived. Guns were trained on me. For the first time in my life, people feared me. 

Sam Carter, the woman the alien wanted to serve, stepped forward. 

"I'm sorry, I can't accept your offer. If you like we can get the Tok'ra to come, they can give you a new body." Her voice was calming, but her words made the parasite angry. 

"The Tok'ra? I would not serve the Tok'ra!" 

"But we're allied with them, you'd be serving them indirectly if you stayed here with me," she reasoned. "The host you have taken, it wasn't taken willingly, was it." It was more a statement than a question. 

"No. It was taken with fear and torment. And I wish to keep it." 

"At least he's honest," said O'Neill. Dr Jackson glared at him again. 

"I must have time to think," he said. I was filled with dread. I had the horrible feeling he was going to do something I wouldn't like. 

They left us alone. There's that old saying, 'you're never alone with schizophrenia'. Well, you're never alone with a Goa'uld inside you, either. For the first time I can remember, I longed to be truly alone. In a way, it was a kind of loneliness. You can't talk to anyone, you can't interact. You're cut off from the world you know. It's a living torment that I couldn't believe anyone would willing accept. Whoever these Tok'ra were, they were braver than me. 

After a while, I lay down on the floor, face down. Unlike my living room carpet, this floor was exceptionally clean. I remembered lying there when the alien had entered me, and I wondered what he was about to do. I was virtually certain that I wouldn't like it. 

I was right. The alien decided it wanted to die. It couldn't live without someone making its decisions for it. And it didn't look like there were any suitable new masters around. He was effectively stuck in an enemy camp, and there was no way out. I had no idea how long he'd lived, but I felt that it was a long, long time. He was tired, and he couldn't find an acceptable solution. So he was going to commit suicide. 

He began to force his way out of my body. The pain was just as intense as it had been when he entered, if not more so. I screamed, one loud, long, piercing scream. And then everything went black. When he decided he wanted to die, he decided he was going to take me with him. Simple as that. 

If you want a happy ending, I suppose one's possible. Sam could have come in with the Goa'uld healing device she has stashed away and healed me. And then I could have got a job working for Dr Jackson, who would have forgiven me for my pretence, and complimented me on the papers I'd written. I knew too much to go back outside, and besides, I was wanted for a few murders! I could have stayed with the few people who would believe the line that so many juries wouldn't: I was possessed by an evil alien. But there's not always a happy ending. Life's not always fair. And X never, ever, marks the spot.


End file.
